


Newgrange

by Ankaret



Category: Veritas: The Quest
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-18
Updated: 2010-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/pseuds/Ankaret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team are in Ireland, foiling Dorna's plans and discovering a secret chamber under Newgrange.  Except... when I say the team, I don't mean Calvin, because he's stuck babysitting Nikko.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Newgrange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caroline Crane](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Caroline+Crane).



"I'm just thinking about the good of the Foundation here, Dr Zond," said Calvin unconvincingly. "The last time you left me to babysit Nikko, he very nearly got sacrificed in a pseudo-Celtic fertility ritual."

"_Nearly_ being sacrificed is a good experience for a young man," said Solomon heartlessly as he shrugged on his tuxedo jacket. "It's a rite of passage."

Maggie leaned in, smiling and adjusted the rose in the jacket's buttonhole. She gave the jacket a practiced twitch so that it fell flatteringly from Dr Zond's shoulders, and incidentally concealed the various items of technical equipment concealed in pockets in the lining and the gun in the back of his waistband.

"The thing with rites of passage is, you do them _once_. I mean, look where we are. It's practically tempting fate." Cal waved a hand at the view from the hotel window. Outside, the city of Dublin did nothing to back up his argument. It looked like any prosperous European city, full of well-dressed people out doing their Christmas shopping and modern civic art projects. They might as well have been in Vienna.

Then again, if they _had_ been in Vienna, Cal would probably have had at least made an effort to persuade Solomon that Nikko was likely to be kidnapped by ravening Beethoven-cultists from the sewers. "We could both go with you," he offered. "It'd be educational."

"Oh, it'll be educational all right," said Solomon grimly. "I don't say I wouldn't _mind_ having more backup – no offence meant, Maggie - "

"None taken," said Maggie, who was looking radiant in a waterfall of dark cream bias-cut silk for which the private jet had made a special stop in Paris.

" – but they only give out so many tickets to be inside the chamber at Newgrange for the Winter Solstice, and what with the white tie party to celebrate the discovery of the new chamber, this year they're going to be even less welcoming to gatecrashers. And considering that Vincent recognised the description of the man who put Professor Ó Súilleabháin in hospital and took _her_ tickets…"

"Dorna," said Cal.

Solomon nodded, even more grimly, which was not hard for him to do; his thin, hawk-nosed face settled into grimness naturally, though not quite as naturally as Vincent's. "Dorna."

Maggie shook her head at Solomon. He managed a creditably suave James Bond impression, and offered her his arm. "That's Vincent at the front with the car. Shall we?"

Cal made one last attempt. "Juliet could look after him. I could sit with Professor Ó Súilleabháin."

"Yes, you could," said Maggie briskly, "except that Juliet's told the police and everybody at the hospital that she's the Professor's niece, and they're going to start asking questions if the niece turns into a nephew."

Cal recognised his fate. "Don't blame me if it turns into the Ski Resort Incident all over again," he said in doom-laden tones. It made Dr Zond smile, which was at least half of what he was aiming for.

"I'll bring you and Nikko back some cake," said Maggie as she picked up her small gold-mesh handbag. She turned to Solomon. "There's going to be cake, right?"

She and Dr Zond headed out of the suite, still discussing the possibility of cake. Cal gathered up some notes and his laptop, and went through into the suite's smaller sitting-room. It contained several large vases of cut roses, a baby grand piano, and an assortment of keyboards and flat-screen monitors that he and Maggie had set up earlier.

It also contained Nikko, who, it had to be said, was rather letting down the tone of the place. He was propped at a perilous v-shaped angle that would have done violence to the digestion and the back muscles of anyone over the age of nineteen, between the piano stool and the panelled wall behind him. He seemed to be trying to simultaneously flip a coin over and over between his knuckles and play 'Chopsticks' on the piano with his feet.

"When I see you like that, I could almost believe you were human," said Cal with something that was _nearly_ affection. "Don't bother me, all right? I've got work to do."

"Until we go out, right?"

Cal looked at Nikko. Now that he thought about it, the kid _was_ dressed up slightly smarter than usual. Calvin had advanced degrees in archaeology, astronomy and paleontology, but not in the semiotics of teen clothing. "Nikko," he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm, "I'm not your _date_."

Nikko flipped the coin neatly into the air, caught and palmed it. "But we're in Dublin! Home of underage drinking!"

Cal thought about being out on the town in a party-loving city full of people who thought he had a cute, exotic accent. Then he thought about being out on the town with Nikko in tow. "We're in Dublin," he corrected, "home of underage disappointment. There are things I'd be willing to risk your father's displeasure for. Getting you drunk is not one of them."

"Oh, come on, man. I'd be doing you a favour by being seen with you."

"Yeah, because what I need is _your_ second-hand cool factor." Cal turned and leaned over the table, all angles of shoulder and hip. "I'll make a deal with you. If you don't bother me whilst I finish running the scans of the new chamber the Professor discovered under Newgrange and correlating it with the Mayan data, I'll let you kick my butt at that skateboarding video game I know you installed even when Maggie told you not to."

"If I went out to that Irish pub on the corner, I wouldn't be in your way," Nikko offered, flick-flacking himself upright like an annoyingly smart-mouthed break-dancer. Cal was relieved that he managed to complete the manoeuvre without damaging the piano. "I'd just be down the road. I wouldn't get into any trouble."

Cal decided not to get into arguing that they were _all_ Irish pubs over here by definition. Instead, he burrowed under the reproduction Louis Quinze desk to connect the laptop to the rest of the network. He wondered whether, if Louis Quinze had known about USB cables – which, if one believed the memoirs of the Comte de Saint-Germain on the subject, he actually did – he'd have been a bit less fond of gilt twiddles on the undersides of his furniture. "If you went out, you'd probably just get snatched off the streets by Dorna."

"And you don't think you're up to rescuing me, is that it?"

"I'd _want_ to rescue you, why?"

"You're supposed to be keeping an eye on me."

"Take the end of this cable and plug it in to the back of the flatscreen. The big one," Cal directed. He retrieved himself from under the table and looked into the screen. Nikko looked over his shoulder.

On the screen, squares of mosaic from a sealed chamber in a Mayan pyramid were busily correlating themselves with squares of carved stonework from beneath an Irish passage-tomb. Cal's and Nikko's faces floated under them, like reflections in blue water. A bar at the bottom of the screen showed three per cent completion. It was going to be a long night.

"One drink," said Cal, _knowing_ he was going to regret this. "In the hotel bar. One _soft_ drink, for you."

"Aw, c'mon. If I was Irish, I'd have been drinking for years," said Nikko blithely. "And you know what they say – on St. Patty's day, everyone's a little bit Irish."

"First," said Cal, sliding the keycard across the panel to lock the door, "it's December, and St. Patrick's day was nine months ago. Secondly, the Irish don't even call him St. Patty. Thirdly…"

"Hello, ladies," said Nikko brightly to three young women who were waiting in an alcove by some upscale fountains for the elevator to arrive. One raised her eyes derisively to heaven, one giggled, and one smiled at Cal, who decided to leave Nikko's education to attend to itself.

"One drink," he said as the elevator door opened and he steered Nikko inside. "And we're not leaving the hotel bar, is that clear?"

The next morning, Juliet and the redoubtable elderly Professor Ó Súilleabháin joined the others for breakfast in the suite. Vincent was, as usual, utterly deadpan in describing the surprisingly functional arrangement of pit-traps and deadfalls that he, Maggie and Solomon had had to traverse in pursuit of the Dorna agents. Juliet seemed more impressed that Maggie had performed her part in the escapade in high heels, and hadn't at any point lost her handbag or the orchid in her hair.

"I tried wearing orchids once," said Vincent, making it sound like the second half of the sentence was going to be some deeply meaningful statement concerning the Buddha. "It didn't suit me."

Juliet giggled. Calvin wondered how he had managed to get through six months acquaintanceship with the woman without noticing what an annoying giggle she had. It had always seemed like a perfectly acceptable, even tuneful laugh before. This morning, it went back and forth through his head like a bone saw, and his mouth tasted like he'd lent it out to a really incompetent early alchemist.

"Drink this," said Vincent, pushing a cup of coffee in front of him.

Calvin looked at the coffee. He could see his own wavering white reflection in its slightly oily surface. "Ugh," he said, profoundly.

"If it is of any comfort to you," said Vincent, "Nikko looks worse."

"I said to him, _one drink_…" Cal muttered under his breath.

"You should have meant it," said Vincent, and tapped a finger on the saucer. Calvin gratefully noticed the two Tylenol lying there. He introduced both to the acid-pit that was his mouth, and swilled them down with coffee.

"What were the pair of you doing last night?" asked Juliet.

"Yes, what?" said Dr Zond, raising an eyebrow.

"Catching a twenty-four-hour gastric upset?" offered Cal. He made innocent eyes at Dr. Zond. "Like I said to you, I'm just not fit to look after Nikko. Whenever I try, something happens. It's not like it's anyone's _fault_. It's just how things are. Stomach infections, sarcophagi, the Ski Resort Incident…"

"I'll run some tests on you both later," said Maggie.

"Well, it can't be some long-lost ancient Irish plague, because neither Nikko nor I went into the crypt," said Cal, attempting to forestall the inevitable.

"Oh, don't you worry about that," said Maggie.

Just as Cal was trying to think of another way of fending her off, there was a grunt from one of the bedrooms. Nikko appeared in the doorway. His hair was on end, his t-shirt was on back to front, and he looked profoundly unwell.

Cal had a flash of memory. It mostly involved vomit. He tried to scroll past the vomiting bits. At least he hadn't been the one doing the vomiting, which was something. He remembered pushing back the sweaty hair off Nikko's forehead, and trying to follow a completely baffling line of conversation about Nikko's mother and a temple and something Nikko thought was his fault. Which it wasn't, because what could a kid of that age have done if Haley Cayce was determined to go chasing after ancient rainbows?

He remembered cool, vulnerable skin beneath the sweat of his hand. He remembered the brush of skin on skin as he pulled Nikko's t-shirt over his head, and then heaved the boy's legs up onto the bed so that he could take his sneakers off. Well, it wasn't as if he could have left Nikko to sleep in his sneakers. They'd probably have made a hole in the hotel's Egyptian cotton sheets, and the hotel would have charged them for it.

"So," said Vincent, rubbing his hands. "Brisk run along the riverbank? Who's with me?"

"I could use the exercise," said Dr Zond. "Nikko?"

Cal wasn't sure what it was that caused him to take pity on his fellow-sufferer. He wasn't even sure whether what he felt was pity. Pity, as far as he could remember, was generally a lot less complicated. Still, he spoke up. "I need Nikko to help me analyse the data from last night. It should just about be cooked by now."

Dr Zond looked amused, but didn't interfere.

"So," said Nikko, leaning close to Cal as the bar slid from ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent and the blocks on the screen slotted together like wisdom-of-the-ancients Tetris, "am I, like, your wingman now?"

"Until the end of the world, man," said Cal, equally deadpan. He slung an arm around Nikko's shoulders. He could feel the heat of muscles and skin through the softness of the battered t-shirt. Nikko's skin smelled of dried boysweat, and hotel soap. Before last night, Cal wouldn't have noticed any of that. He noticed it now, and decided to call the small electric tingle in his fingertips yet another after-effect of borderline alcohol poisoning. "You and me. Arthur and Lancelot. Butch and Sundance. Miles Standish and, uh, that other guy."

"Wakko and Yakko," offered Nikko helpfully.

Cal blinked. "What?"

The last piece of the puzzle slotted into place on the screen. The laptop gave a gentle _ting_. Calvin looked at the Ogham, and then at the Mayan carved pictograms. He had a feeling he was going to need a lot more Tylenol in the very near future. He had a feeling the entire _world_ was going to need a lot more Tylenol.

"Get Dr. Zond," he said tensely. "Now."

For once, Nikko did what he was told without backchat. Cal leaned his forearms on the cool polished table and stared into the screen, and then leaned forward until his brow touched the null-feeling plastic edge of the monitor. The heat of the screen warmed his face.

"Until the end of the world, man," he said again, under his breath, and meant it.


End file.
